Watching all these dudes riding their bikes across France kinda makes me want to get out there, too. But by the time I’m through with my labors for VeloNews.com, it’s hotter than the hubs of Hell and I tend to lose interest in anything other than cold beverages.

I used to work the site with a laptop at a table on the back deck, which at least got me outdoors in the cool of the morning, but the “advance” of technology has made this impossible. Now I need two 22-inch monitors so I can follow the stage via video and have quick and easy access to e-mail, instant messaging and about a jillion browser windows.

To tell the truth, I could use a third monitor, like my colleague Charles Pelkey, but I haven’t got enough desk for it. So sometimes I power up the MacBook and leave it sitting atop the drawing board next to the desk.

All this, mind you, so I can follow and chronicle a stage that pretty much sucked ass. About the last 10km of today’s 196km stage were interesting, thanks to Alexander Vinokourov. Whatever else you can say about him — and you can say plenty — the dude loves to bring the pain.

Now that he has a stage win under his belt, Vino’ has vowed once again to work for Super Spaniard. And the defending champ will need all the help he can get. The next four stages are some bad mamma-jammas, and his main tow truck Dani Navarro hit the deck today, as did Jesus Hernandez, who seems to be having an even worse Tour than Radio Shackstrong.